Cowboys no number 1954

This is Robert Frank's "Cowboys no number", a photographic work made with film. It's all about the process, right? The grainy blacks, whites and grays aren't trying to hide anything; instead, the raw, unpolished quality of the film is front and center. Look at the texture. You can almost feel the grit and the graininess under your fingertips. It’s this tactile quality that draws me in. Each frame, a glimpse, a moment, yet the repetition of the frames, the way they sit on the film, reminds us that photography is just one frame at a time. There is a sequence here, shadows, objects, faces, a whole story, but it's up to us to string it all together. Maybe that's Frank's point; there is no fixed narrative, but just possibilities. Like life, it's ambiguous, and like art, it's up for grabs. It makes me think of Ed Ruscha. Someone else who documented the changing landscape of America.